Rod Price

Rod Price - Open - 2000 - Burnside

During the late sixties, Rod Price was in the process of creating a unique blend of slide and blues-based playing when he was plucked from the London music scene by ex-Savoy Brown alumni to become a founding member of Foghat. Thirty years, three platinum records, and eight gold albums later, Foghat has no doubt become one of the most successful British bands to hit American soil. And, Price decided it was time to re-chart where he wanted to go musically and spiritually. Open is the result. Now free to play what truly moves him, Price plays with a fire that expresses his passion for the blues. © amazon.com

"Open" was the late Rod Price's first solo album featuring 10 classic blue tracks, played with a love and passion for the blues. Rod Price was one of rock music's greatest slide guitarists. His band, Foghat, had huge success. As stated, many times on A.O.O.F.C, it's always a thrill to hear guitarists from sometimes AOR band's mindblowing music, get back to basics, and record blues albums like "Open". During his career, Rod played with the great bluesmen like Champion Jack Dupree, Duster Bennett, Eddie Kirkland, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon and Honey Boy Edwards. "Open" contains covers of songs from Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson, and more. "Dynaflate", his own composition is included on the album. The great veteran of the U.K. r&b circuit, Graham Vickery, aka Shakey Vick, adds vocals and harp to the album. "Open" is a marvellous blues album , and a wonderful testament to the late "Magician Of Slide". Listen to Rod's "West Four" album, and check out Foghat's great "Return Of The Boogie Men" is @ FOGH/ROTBM

TRACKS / COMPOSERS

1 Sitting on Top of the World - Lonnie Chatmon/Walter Vinson
2 Walking Blues - Robert Johnson
3 Key to the Highway - Big Bill Broonzy/Charles Segar
4 Dynaflate - Rod Price
5 Bluebird Blues - Sonny Boy Williamson
6 Long Distance Call - McKinley Morganfield
7 Got Love It You Want It - James Moore
8 One More Time - Mel Tillis
9 The Stumble - Freddie King/Sonny Thompson
10 Elevator Woman - Sonny Boy Williamson

MUSICIANS

Rod Price (guitar, slide guitar, background vocals)
Tom Dawes (bass, background vocals)
Bruno Ravel (bass)
Kinny Landrum (piano, Hammond B-3 organ, background vocals)
John O. Reilly (drums)
Graham Vickery, aka Shakey Vick (vocals, harp)

REVIEWS

Wailing slide and howling harmonica. That was the expectation of Shakey Vick's Big City Blues Band as they tore up the clubs in England in the late `60s and seems to be the pattern once again as two original members rejoin forces more than 30 years later. Guitarist Rod Price, who found international fame as a member of the Blues-based Rock outfit Foghat in the 1970s, has returned to his true love for the Blues and he's brought old pal Graham Vickery along for the ride. It's almost hard to believe that these two ever stopped working together because they blend with each other so well. They've certainly brought back that old powerhouse feeling that British Blues bands did so well from that earlier time on this debut release from Burnside Records. It's easy to vision Savoy Brown, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Ten Years After, or Fleetwood Mac cutting a record of this nature during their heydays. Vickery's harp and vocals make a great impact on this CD, but it's clearly Price's stunning slide guitar that is showcased here. Howlin' Wolf's, "Sitting On Top Of The World", and Freddie King's, "The Stumble", absolutely thrive under that gliding piece of metal on Price's swift-moving fingers. He has the ability to soar over the strings allowing them to speak directly to us with a searing, heartfelt intensity. Whereas, Foghat may have pushed that intensity level to the extreme, Price has toned down to a brilliant Blues recognition worthy of standing alongside any slide player of the day. "Open" is a well-crafted CD and certainly one deserving attention. © 2000 Cascade Blues Association

This is the first ever solo disc from this former Foghat lead guitarist, and it is a return to the music that he loves the best. The music here is the blues as seen and translated by the English guitarists who started the revitalization of the blues as a viable medium. He revisits the standards of many of the old blues masters: Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Johnson, and Slim Harpo, to name a few. He takes his slide guitar to the forefront as the lead instrument on these, leaving the lead vocals to his old buddy and harp player, Shakey Vick (a happy and long-overdue reunion). The interplay between these two is a pleasure to hear; listen to the way they complement and play off each other on the Chester Burnett standard "Sitting on Top of the World." There is nothing earthshakingly new here, but there is some of the finest lead guitar work ever, with a band that allows plenty of room while at the same time giving good solid support. It brings back and adds to that wonderful style that was first brought to listeners by Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Peter Green, and the rest of the British guitarists. © Bob Gottlieb, allmusic.com

ABOUT ROD PRICE

In the Seventies, the British band Foghat, with their unfashionable brand of blues and boogie, became favourites of middle America. They toured America constantly after placing five songs in the US Top Forty between 1976 and 1979 and released 12 albums featuring the mighty pairing of "Lonesome" Dave Peverett (on guitar and lead vocals) and Rod "The Bottle" Price (on lead and slide guitar as well as backing vocals). Roderick Michael Price, guitarist, singer and songwriter: born London 22 November 1947; twice married (one son, two stepsons, two stepdaughters); died Wilton, New Hampshire 22 March 2005. In the Seventies, the British band Foghat, with their unfashionable brand of blues and boogie, became favourites of middle America. They toured America constantly after placing five songs in the US Top Forty between 1976 and 1979 and released 12 albums featuring the mighty pairing of "Lonesome" Dave Peverett (on guitar and lead vocals) and Rod "The Bottle" Price (on lead and slide guitar as well as backing vocals). Price left the group in 1981 but returned in 1993 as Foghat enjoyed a new lease of life when their cover version of Willie Dixon's "I Just Want to Make Love to You" and their own composition "Slow Ride" were used in the film Dazed and Confused. Born in Chiswick, west London, in 1947, Rod Price grew up in a musical family, his father and brother being lovers of classical music. However, when Rod heard Big Bill Broonzy on the radio, he was hooked on the blues and talked his mother into buying him an acoustic guitar. By 1966, he had developed an amazing slide technique using a bottleneck, which would earn him the nickname "The Bottle". He beat a young Paul Kossoff (later in Free) at an audition to join the Shackey Vick's Big City Blues Band, which dedicated itself to covering material by US bluesmen. But they failed to capitalise on the British blues boom instigated by Alexis Korner and John Mayall and, in 1968, Price moved on to Dynaflow Blues and then, the following year, the heavier Black Cat Bones. In early 1971, Price answered an advertisement placed by Dave Peverett in Melody Maker. Peverett had just left the British blues band Savoy Brown, taking with him the rhythm section of Roger Earl (drums) and Tony Stevens (bass). Price had become a fixture on the London circuit and, when he spoke to Peverett on the phone, the two guitarists realised they already knew each other. They decided to join forces and form a group called Foghat (a word concocted during a demented scrabble game). "When we got together, it clicked," Price recalled: We dug into our blues roots. The reason we were successful was our passion for the blues. All we really wanted to do was to play; success was just the icing on the cake. The impresario Albert Grossman, who had made his name with Peter, Paul & Mary, Bob Dylan and The Band, was about to launch his own label, Bearsville. When he saw Foghat in London, he offered them a record deal and flew Todd Rundgren over to produce their début album (although the sessions were completed with Dave Edmunds). US radio picked up on the group's muscular rendition of "I Just Want to Make Love to You" and Foghat's constant touring did the rest. In 1974, their fourth album, Energized, was the first of eight gold albums. The band broke big in late 1975 with the slide-riff-heavy "Slow Ride", the single extracted from the album Rock'n'Roll Outlaws. The barnstorming "Drivin' Wheel" co-written by Peverett and Price, "Stone Blue" and "Third Time Lucky (First Time I Was a Fool)" kept them on the radio for three years, and in 1977 Foghat Live went double platinum. Price became known for his tour de force performances and lengthy slide-guitar solos played on a Les Paul Jr Custom. By 1981, he had decided to leave. "I was truly burnt out, exhausted from the pressures of touring and writing," he said. Both Peverett and Pearl continued to tour, with rival line-ups of Foghat. Price began guesting with "Lonesome Dave's Foghat" and the original quartet reunited in 1993 for the album Return of the Boogie Men. Price released two solo albums, Open (2000) and West Four (2003), and was featured prominently on the Foghat Decades Live double-CD in 2003. © Pierre Perrone, Wednesday, 30 March 2005, © independent.co.uk



BIO (WIKIPEDIA)

Rod Price (born Roderick Michael Price, 22 November 1947, Willesden, North London, United Kingdom — died 22 March 2005, Wilton, New Hampshire, United States) was an English guitarist who was best known for his work with the rock band Foghat. He was known as 'The Magician Of Slide', and 'Slide King Of Rock And Roll', due to his slide guitar playing. At the age of 21, Price joined the British blues band Black Cat Bones (replacing Paul Kossoff), which recorded one album, Barbed Wire Sandwich. The album was released at the end of 1969, when British blues was being supplanted by rock, and though artistically successful it was a commercial failure. The band dissolved, and Price joined Foghat when the group was first formed in London in 1971. He played on the band's first ten albums, released from 1972 through to 1980. His signature slide playing ability helped propel the band to being one of the most successful rock groups in the United States during the 1970s. His slide playing was featured distinctly on Foghat songs "Drivin' Wheel", "Stone Blue", and the group's biggest hit, "Slow Ride", which was a top 20 hit in 1976. Price's final performance with Foghat was at the Spectrum in Philadelphia on 16 November 1980. He was replaced by guitarist Erik Cartwright. Price virtually disappeared from the music business until 1990, when he briefly joined forces with Foghat vocalist Dave Peverett. Foghat had actually split a few years after Price left, and drummer Roger Earl had reformed the band without Peverett, who decided to start up his own version of the band and invited Price to participate. Price was in and out of the band for the next couple of years, but agreed to commit totally to a reunion featuring all four original Foghat members in 1993. Foghat then released Return Of The Boogie Men in September 1994. The album failed to gain as much commercial success as the band had previously earned, but nevertheless they hit the road and began touring regularly across North America, rebuilding their reputation as an excellent live act. Foghat released the Road Cases CD in 1998, a live recording which further cemented Price's slide virtuosity. A DVD entitled Two Centuries Of Boogie, recorded at a 1996 concert in Dayton, Ohio gives a close-up and first-hand view of Price's guitar abilities. It also features a very in-depth interview with the musician himself, as well as other members of Foghat. Price once again left Foghat in 1999, after vocalist Peverett was diagnosed with cancer. The singer returned to the band after several months of recuperation, but by this point Price had decided he wanted to step away from full-time road work and parted company with Foghat. He was replaced by guitarist Bryan Bassett. Price began a solo career at the beginning of the 21st century, and returned to his blues roots. He released two CD's, Open (2002) and West Four (2003). He toured and performed in blues clubs across the United States, and was featured at guitar seminars and workshops as well during this period. He died at his home in Wilton, New Hampshire, on 22 March 2005, after he fell down a flight of stairs when suffering a heart attack. He was survived by his wife Jackie and five children. During his long career, Price also collaborated with Shaky Vic's Blues Band, Champion Jack Dupree, Duster Bennett, Eddie Kirkland, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon and Honey Boy Edwards.